Descending to the black shore…
No ads in the reef — one shield, thirty chapters
Play Andromeda — a free Greek-myth brick breaker about the shattered chain
Play Andromeda free: a Greek-myth brick breaker. Swing the bronze shield, break the coral seals, hold back the tide and free Andromeda from Cetus across thirty chapters.
Andromeda: The Shattered Chain is a free browser brick breaker built on Greek myth. You are Perseus on the black shore, holding a bronze shield and a shard of the Gorgon's reflected light. Every chapter is a reef of coral seals between you and the chain that holds Andromeda to the cliff. Break them all, keep the shard alive, and at the end of each act face one coil of Cetus.
The frame is the myth. Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter was prettier than the Nereids; the sea sent a bill with teeth. Andromeda has been counting links for three days, and she has stopped asking to be saved — which is worse. Thirty chapters across four acts, four fights with the beast, and one endless sea.
How a chapter works
- Move the shield. Drag the pointer or your finger left and right. The bronze shield follows, and the shard rests on it until you let go.
- Loose the shard. Click, tap or press Space. It bounces off the walls, off bricks, and off the shield — and it only comes back when it falls.
- Aim with the edge. Hit the shard with the outer edge of the shield and it leaves steeply; hit it dead centre and it goes almost straight up. The shield is an aiming device, not a wall.
- Read the reef. Coral breaks once, shell twice, obsidian three times, seal crystals pay double, steel chain anchors never break.
- Beat the tide. From chapter nine the wall drops one row every surge. If any brick crosses the dashed line, the chapter is over.
The reef, brick by brick
| Brick | What it is | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| Coral | Rose-coloured living stone | One hit. The bulk of every wall. |
| Shell | Pale, ridged, grown over older reef | Two hits. It flashes white before it gives. |
| Obsidian | Dark violet, threaded with gold | Three hits. Found from the second act onward. |
| Seal crystal | Glowing cyan, cut like a cut gem | Two hits and double score. The chain's own seals. |
| Steel anchor | Riveted iron plate | Indestructible. Play around it; it is the reef's skeleton. |
The four acts
| Act | Chapters | Where you are | What the reef does |
|---|---|---|---|
| I · The Black Shore | 1–8 | The cliff, the chain, the first coil | Teaches the shield, the bank shot and the seal. Ends with Cetus surfacing. |
| II · The Boiling Reef | 9–16 | Water hot enough to cook a god | The tide begins. Armour doubles, the current leans on the shard. |
| III · The Drowned Colonnade | 17–24 | A city with doors and no people | Tentacles, permanent tide, and the weight of a hundred metres of water. |
| IV · The Maw | 25–30 | Inside the beast | Every rule at once, and the last link has your name on it. |
Gifts from the water
| Gift | Effect | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Wide Aegis | The shield grows by half | 12 seconds |
| Gorgon Split | Every shard in play becomes three | Until they fall |
| Slow Tide | The shard turns heavy and readable | 10 seconds |
| Bronze Edge | The shard passes through bricks | 8 seconds |
| Heart | Restores one shield, up to five | Instant |
| Star | Five hundred points | Instant |
Strategy that actually works
- Stand off-centre on purpose. The shard leaves at the angle you meet it. A shield dead under the ball sends it straight back into the same hole.
- Clear the lowest row first. The tide only has to reach one brick. The bottom row is the one that ends the chapter.
- Bank off the walls. The far corners are always the last bricks standing, and a wall bounce reaches them without crossing the middle.
- Chain, don't hunt. The multiplier climbs while you keep breaking and dies after a second and a half. A fast wall beats a careful single brick.
- When Cetus fires, move first. Ink does not take a shield, but it stuns the shield for a second and a half — long enough to miss the shard.
Technical notes
The game is a deterministic simulation: a fixed 120 Hz step, swept circle-versus-rectangle collisions, seeded reef generation and a seeded gift table. The reef, the bronze, the shard, Cetus and every particle are painted on Canvas 2D; the surf, the bronze knocks, the coral cracks and the lyre at the end of a chapter are built from oscillators and filtered noise through the Web Audio API. There is no image file inside the game, no audio file, no font download and no third-party script. Progress, stars and your endless record live under andromeda.chain.v1 in your own browser. Nothing is uploaded, because there is no server.
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Andromeda — frequently asked questions
What is Andromeda: The Shattered Chain?
Andromeda: The Shattered Chain is a free browser brick-breaker built on Greek myth. You play Perseus on the black shore, holding a bronze shield and a shard of the Gorgon's reflected light. Every chapter is a reef of coral seals between you and the chain that holds Andromeda to the cliff. Break the seals, keep the shard alive, and at the end of each act face one coil of Cetus. There are thirty chapters across four acts, plus an endless mode called The Tide Without End.
How do I control the shield?
Move the pointer or drag your finger left and right: the bronze shield follows, and the shard rests on it until you let go. Click, tap or press Space to loose the shard. On a keyboard the left and right arrows, or A and D, move the shield, Space launches, P or Escape pauses, M mutes, and R restarts the chapter. Where the shard lands on the shield decides the rebound angle: the outer edge sends it away steeply, the centre sends it almost straight up. That is the whole skill of the game.
What are the different bricks?
Coral is rose-coloured and breaks in one hit. Shell is pale and takes two hits. Obsidian is dark violet with gold veins and takes three. Seal crystals glow cyan, take two hits and pay double score. Steel chain anchors never break at all, so you have to play around them. From the second act some coral is replaced by shell or obsidian, and the last chapters mix every kind in the same wall.
What happens when the tide rises?
From chapter nine onward the reef is on a clock. A red warning pulses three seconds before each surge, then the entire wall drops one row toward your shield. If any brick crosses the dashed danger line above the shield, the chapter ends immediately. The surge never adds new bricks, so the wall gets shorter as it gets closer, and when only three seals remain the chain gives way and they crumble on their own. Clear the lowest row first, and never let a surge catch you aiming.
What do the falling gifts do?
Catch them with the shield. Wide Aegis makes the shield half again as wide for twelve seconds. Gorgon Split turns every shard in play into three. Slow Tide makes the shard heavy and readable for ten seconds. Bronze Edge lets the shard pass through bricks without bouncing for eight seconds. A heart restores one shield, up to five. A gold star is worth five hundred points. They fall quickly and expire, so take them early or let them go.
How do score and stars work?
Every brick you break adds to a chain multiplier that rises while you keep breaking and resets after a second and a half without a hit; the ceiling is eight. Seal crystals pay double, boss hits pay thirty, and clearing a chapter pays six hundred plus one hundred and eighty for every shield you kept. You begin each chapter with three shields. Stars are simply the shields you finished with: three stars for a flawless clear, two for one lost, one for a clear with a single shield left.
Is there an endless mode, and does it work on a phone?
The Tide Without End unlocks when you clear chapter eight. Each wave is a fresh seeded reef with more armour, a faster shard and a narrower shield, and you carry your shields from wave to wave, gaining one for every reef you clear. The run ends when the sea takes the last one. The game is completely free, with no download, no install and no ads inside it. It runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet and phone, with a mouse, a finger or a keyboard, and all progress is stored locally in your own browser.